Bono praises Wall Street reform on oil measure

U2 front man Bono has praised the oil revenue transparency provision which is included in the Wall Street reform law. The Irish man urged the adoption of similar rules elsewhere in a weekend New York Times op-ed.

“I’m pleased to give you an update on an intervention that some of us thought of and fought for as critical: hidden somewhere in the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill (admit it ... you haven’t read it all either) there is a hugely significant ‘transparency’ amendment, added by Senators Richard Lugar and Benjamin Cardin. Now energy companies traded on American exchanges will have to reveal every payment they make to government officials. If money changes hands, it will happen in the open. This is the kind of daylight that makes the cockroaches scurry,” Bono wrote in a weekend New York Times op-ed.

Bono was highlighting the measure ahead of this weeks United Nations major development summit.

Senators Richard Lugar and Ban Cardin fought hard fought hard for the inclusion of this measure which will force several oil and mining companies to have more transparency regarding payments to foreign governments for production licenses.

According to the singer some multinational oil companies “knowingly participate in a system of backhanders and bribery that ends up cheating the host nation and turning what should be a resource blessing into a kind of curse of black-market cabals.”